Property owners, agencies partner to cut crime rates in Greenspoint

Drive around the Greenspoint area, and you see complex after complex, many of them owned by Steve Moore’s Villa Serena Communities.

“We started buying properties here around four and a half years ago,” Moore said.

In all, Moore now co-owns nearly 6,000 units in the neighborhood, but he moved into Biscayne at CityView about four years ago.

“It was so bad, I had my apartment broken into. I had my car broken into twice. I had a gun pointed at my head in front of my apartment,” Moore said. “But that was in the beginning.”

He says that was the beginning of a big shift for Greenspoint.

“We’ve had a good influx of owners who come into the North Houston area,” says Tracy Harrison, North Houston District’s Director of Public Safety. “A lot of owners have invested time, energy and money into their apartment communities.”

The district works with property owners, such as Moore, to successfully bring crime rates down.

“A lot of people have a preconceived notion or ill-conceived notion about the area, but the facts are the facts,” Harrison said. “(Crime rates) are continuing to decrease year after year.”

KHOU 11 News ran the numbers, and Houston Police reports show crime in the neighborhood dropped more than 13 percent since 2013.

“It’s really evolving,” said Robert Fiederlien, the district’s VP of Planning & Development.

That evolution is bringing renewed life into the community.

“We have a lot of new leases signed in the area, and a lot of new businesses moving to the area,” Fiederlien says. “Amazon is going to be opening a nearly million-square-foot fulfillment center in the district. That’ll be open in mid-July.”

For Moore, that means it’s more important than ever to invest in the community he calls home by partnering with organizations that can improve his tenants’ lives, including Ambassadors for Christ.

“It takes a village to raise or children and no one entity can do it by themselves,” said Lisa Willis, the program’s director. “I think we’re more powerful when we collaborate and work together.”

That doesn’t just apply to agencies and non-profits, but to the tenants as well.

“Please, don’t rent here if you’re not the kind of person who wants a place where safety and quiet is emphasized,” Moore said.